After ten long years of Afghan war fueled by America’s own ally Pakistan, US is ready to throw in the towel.

Obama administration is ready to conclude a Vietnam-style peace deal as dictated by Pakistan with Afghan Taliban leaders chosen by Pakistan. US will begin its drawdown and finally exit the theater of a war it is desperate not to be seen as having lost, not so much to the Taliban and Al Qaeda as to the wily Generals of Rawalpindi who have proved to be smarter than the Americans.

That facade of peace will crumble within few years after the departure of US troops and Pakistan will bring Afghanistan under its suzerainty with reimposition of Taliban rule just as it did in 1996 while tired and financially broke Uncle Sam will helplessly look the other way just as it did in 1975.

I do hope that this means the end to that war. It has been clear since about January, 2002 that this how it would end. I had no idea it would take this long. Our military leadership insisted on this course because they could see that withdrawal would signify defeat. It was all about saving face. What an incredible waste.

Hopefully the Afghanis can begin to repair their country now. They have been in continuous war for over 30 years now. They should be tired by now.

I stopped paying close attention to Afghanistan several months ago, but the first thought that pops into my head is, “Did we learn anything?” At the same time I have to think about the revelation of what has been known for a long time that the Pakistani ISI supports the Taliban. Well, most likely, the ISI has arrangements with factions within the Taliban and they are still trying to extend their influence deep within Afghan territory and actually control towns, cities and territory. Before we invaded, the Pakistani army drafted young Afghan men for the Taliban and controlled territory so that the Taliban could extend their gains.
Did we learn that a large western army running around trying to find someone to fight is not particularly relevant to gaining influence with strongmen in Afghanistan or with leaders in the ISI?
From the very beginning, America focused upon institution building and other western concepts while Karzai focused upon recruiting strong men into a political network and probably attempted to manage everything from the drug trade to USAID cash as tools to build a political organization.
In places like this that extend throughout Central Asia, we are dealing with personal politics and peasant style network organization building of spreading the gains and nurturing deals. Consensus building consolidates the political gains. It’s all very difficult even though it does sound like lots of fun.
So, when we think of long term gains that last far into the future, we have to think about the next best deal coming down the road and the continual threat of creating a perception that your deal with the next village is a threat to what you thought you had consolidated last month. Alliances are not easily made and difficult to nourish and maintain.

Bob Spencer

Just can;t seem to trust the guy, now that he's given Prof. Mearshiemer cover, basically anointing Gilad Atzmon as one of his "realist" pals. Here's Mr. Atzmon's footnote 20, wherein he claims Jews

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Throughout the centuries, some Jewish bankers have gathered the reputation of backers & financers of wars [19] & even one communist revolution[20].
20. Jacob Schiff (the head of Kuh, Loeb & Company) is credited with giving twenty million dollars to the Bolshevik revolution. A year after his death the Bolsheviks deposited over six hundred million rubles in Schiff’s banking firm Kuh, Loeb. (New York Journal American 1949. February 3). One may mistakenly assume that the shift of world Jewry lobbying from Germany to America is the product of Hiter’s rise. ..
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Now this fantasy was well described by anti-Semites past. Consider Ms. Elizabeth Dilling, The Jewish Religion: Its Influence Today .
One of the prime Jewish conspirators plotting to Communize Russia was Jacob Schiff, who became head of the enormously powerful New York Jewish banking house of Kuhn, Loeb and Co.
Turn to the laudatory sketch of Jacob Schiff, in the Jewish Communal (Kehillah) Register of New York City, 1917-18, of which Kehillah he was an Executive Committeeman (see Exhibits 210, 212, 214, 215).
It is stated there how German-born Schiff came to America and made connections with a banking house. "In 1873, he returned to Europe where he made connections with some of the chief German banking houses" and "The firm of Kuhn-Loeb & Co. floated the large Japanese war loans of 1904-5, thus making possible the Japanese victory over Russia ..."
The last paragraph (Exhibit 215) boasts "Mr. Schiff has always used his wealth and his influence in the best interests of his people. He financed the enemies of autocratic Russia. [This was written in 1918, after the Bolshevik revolution had been made secure] ... and used his financial influence to keep Russia from the money market of the United States." It is stated that "all factions of Jewry" hailed him for this.
"Today it is estimated by Jacob’s grandson, John Schiff, a prominent member of New York society, that the old man sank about $20,000,000 for the final triumph of Bolshevism in Russia." (Cholly Knickerbocker in his society news column in the Hearst Press, Feb. 3, 1949, appearing in the N.Y. Journal-American and other papers.)
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Now, it turns out Mr. Schiff handed the $20,000,000 to the Kerensky government, not the Bolsheviks. Here’s more information on said State Department documents.
However, none of the above statements can be supported with hard empirical evidence. The most significant information is contained in the paragraph to the effect that the British authorities possessed "letters intercepted from various groups of international Jews setting out a scheme for world dominion." If indeed such letters exist, then they would provide support (or nonsupport) for a presently unsubstantiated hypothesis: to wit, that the Bolshevik Revolution and other revolutions are the work of a worldwide Jewish conspiracy.
Moreover, when statements and assertions are not supported by hard evidence and where attempts to unearth hard evidence lead in a circle back to the starting point — particularly when everyone is quoting everyone else — then we must reject the story as spurious. There is no concrete evidence that Jews were involved in the Bolshevik Revolution because they were Jewish. There may indeed have been a higher proportion of Jews involved, but given tsarist treatment of Jews, what else would we expect? There were probably many Englishmen or persons of English origin in the American Revolution fighting the redcoats. So what? Does that make the American Revolution an English conspiracy? Winston Churchill's statement that Jews had a "very great role" in the Bolshevik Revolution is supported only by distorted evidence. The list of Jews involved in the Bolshevik Revolution must be weighed against lists of non-Jews involved in the revolution. When this scientific procedure is adopted, the proportion of foreign Jewish Bolsheviks involved falls to less than twenty percent of the total number of revolutionaries — and these Jews were mostly deported, murdered, or sent to Siberia in the following years. Modern Russia has in fact maintained tsarist anti-Semitism.
It is significant that documents in the State Department files confirm that the investment banker Jacob Schiff, often cited as a source of funds for the Bolshevik Revolution, was in factagainst support of the Bolshevik regime.5 This position, as we shall see, was in direct contrast to the Morgan-Rockefeller promotion of the Bolsheviks.
The persistence with which the Jewish-conspiracy myth has been pushed suggests that it may well be a deliberate device to divert attention from the real issues and the real causes. The evidence provided in this book suggests that the New York bankers who were also Jewish had relatively minor roles in supporting the Bolsheviks, while the New York bankers who were also Gentiles (Morgan, Rockefeller, Thompson) had major roles.
What better way to divert attention from the real operators than by the medieval bogeyman of anti-Semitism?
http://www.reformation.org/wall-st-bolshevik-app2.html
In any case, hard to believe are the assessments of Prof. Walt when he supports garbage like the above.

"announcing a certain date (or even an approximate date) will reduce Afghan incentives to cooperate with us now and in the interim, and their incentive to cooperate will decline more and more as the date of withdrawal nears."

All that is absolutely true, but given our internal political situation, this is the only way we are capable of withdrawing from Afghanistan. It was the same thing with Iraq--1st, the people who favored withdraw said "Let's withdraw right now," and the people who favored staying said "No, we can't 'cut-and-run'." So the pro-withdrawal camp said "Fine--let's set a date in the future for withdrawing," and the pro-occupation camp said, "But that will reduce our leverage." But they didn't want to avoid setting a date because they were worried it would reduce our leverage; they wanted to avoid setting a date to make it more difficult for us to withdraw. As long as we didn't set a date, the pro-occupation camp could use Friedman Units to keep us there forever, perpetually saying, "The situation is improving but the gains are fragile, just give us 12 more months." Then, 12 months later, say the same thing and hope people have forgotten all the previous times you'd said it.

There are 3 options: 1) stay in Afghanistan forever, 2) set a deadline for departure and leave then, and 3) leave without announcing a deadline. #3 is the best, #2 is 2nd best, and #1 is the worst. But given the internal political dynamics of this country, #3 is impossible. So we have to go with #2.

how sad that the left leaning anti american halls of academia are leading the charge into the chamberlain'esque hall or mirrors...it won't end well....... in the meantime, walt sure has a curious band of followers...making him a media star....the hell with being a real academic... so long as he sees his name in the lights.

harvard should be ashamed. same for khalidi at columbia.

for anyone interested, an excellent read is "the professors; the 101 most dangerous academics in america". A truly enlightening expose of what is taking place all across your colleges and universities in america. It is a program, it is by design, its an outgrowth of the 60's and terrorists like ayers.

Walt and Panetta say much the same thing the same day, although in different places. Amazing. Not exactly a meeting of great minds, since neither appears to hold a high opinion of the other's.

As he writes here, Mr Walt still doesn't seem all that clear in his mind about the humanity of people who happen to be Afghans. That's what shines through his claim that the Panetta plan if implemented "will reduce Afghan incentives to cooperate with us now and in the interim, and their incentive to cooperate will decline more and more as the date of withdrawal nears. Once they know that the stream of benefits is finite, they will be less willing to make adjustments or concessions to us in order to keep us in the fight."

Some Afghans will feel that way, some won't. Who are these Afghans eager to "keep us in the fight?" PX employees? Which fight, exactly? What adjustments and concessions are they making to us at present? Evidence abounds that demands from Washington for adjustments and concession in Afghanistan have achieved little for years. How many times have military leaders in Afghanistan apologized personally to president Karzai for blunders that have killed peaceable Afghan civilians? How often has that president charged publicly that the current conduct of that war by foreign occupiers is improper and indecent? And that he wants it to end? When did he start doing that?

Perhaps the most significant news photo of 2011 showed a small group of morose uniformed Americans in Iraq formally folding the national flag under the commanding eye of a uniformed Iraqi officer, preparatory to coming home. Interesting to ponder what the 2013 equivalent will be from Afghanistan.

eom

The departure is late, but it's more professional than the entry followed by the neglect of the Bush regime. We have 18 months to prepare Afghan troops to take control and 18 months to evaluate their performance and correct any deficiencies. After that, it will be in the hands of the Afghans.

In the past decade, the US destroyed US computers, digital cameras, cell phones, and fertilizer, the basic ingredients of smart munitions. The US destroyed US ground and air vehicles. The US burned billions of gallons of US gasoline, diesel fuel, and aviation fuel. The US wasted billions of US man hours of work. US Homeland Security kept millions of Asian scientists and technicians out of the US, so they set up companies in Asia to compete against the US. The US lost huge sales, profits, and taxes; the US gave its economy to Asia; and the US created a huge national debt. Wars give a temporary, artificial boost to an economy, but the costs always return.

It is such an honor to have the chance to join the discussion of this great blog site! I want to extend my thanks for this.

Nuggiketten

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